Nikki's video. It finally worked!

I finally got the blogger to upload one of my videos. Yay! So you get to see Nikki's dance after all. Enjoy!

Primary Talent Show

Tonight our ward had a primary talent show and Nikki signed up to do a dance. At first she was going to dance by herself but when I started asking her this morning which song she wanted to dance to for the talent show that night she began to get nervous. I had seen on facebook that a friend of hers was going to dance too so I called her up to see if they could dance together. They said yes and so we went over to their house in the afternoon to practice with the song they had already picked out. It was the "ABC song". So yes, it only lasted about 30 seconds but Nicole said it was long enough for her. I think it helped a lot that she was able to practice before and that she wasn't doing it alone. She had fun and did a great job! Especially considering she's never had a dance lesson in her life. She made all the moves up herself.

Before the show. She's ready to go!

Grandma Vernie came to watch and help with the other two kids. Thank you so much!

Garrett and I were doing the "Popcorn song". He was doing the look out the window part. It's his favorite song. Even Jack likes to do the popcorn hand motions now.

And here's the certificate all the participants received. It says "Thank you for coming! You are a star!"

The Jumpin Jungle

A new business opened recently and we finally got over to check it out. It's called the Jumpin Jungle and the kids loved it. I had a hard time getting them to leave, but I did buy the monthly pass so we'll be going again many times. It was a better deal to get the monthly pass than to just pay for one time. $16 for 3 kids for 1 day or $35 for a monthly pass to come back unlimited times for the next month Mon-Thurs. This place will come in really handy on those days my kids have lots of energy and the weather isn't good outside.

Jack spent most of his time either in this little car or on my lap.

An Eventful Week

Last night we went over to my brother's house for my nephew's birthday party. Towards the end of the night most of the kids were running up and down the stairs and making lots of noise. The next thing I know Nikki is crying pretty hard and walking down the stairs holding her hand. Somebody had slammed a bedroom door on her index and middle fingers on her left hand. So I rushed her over to the sink to wash it off. I was going to just put some ointment and a bandaid on but several people suggested that she should probably get seen because it looked like her cutical was on top of her skin and needed to be cut off or something. Quickcare was closing in 15 minutes so I rushed her over there and left the boys with the family. We barely squeezed in the door as they were closing up but while we were in the triage room the doctor came in to look at it and said she would need to have it x-rayed to be able to help her so she sent us over to the ER which was right next door. Nikki hurt and cried a lot for the first 45 minutes or so and then finally started to calm down and the pain was subsiding. So there was lots of waiting in between everything but while we were waiting in the ER we got to watch a cake decorating contest on the food network, which we both enjoyed. Then they took an x-ray of her fingers and the man told her how well she was doing at holding her fingers in position and that made her feel really good. She even got a big Tootsie Pop sucker from him after. So after the x-ray looked fine they put some ointment on her fingers and wrapped them in gauze. They said it should heal itself and the nails may fall off by themselves or have a hole in the middle area. She'll be rechecked by her pediatrician on Thursday. Nikki did very well though. After an hour she started to smile again. By the time we left she said she felt little or no pain. We were at the hospital for 2 hours. By the time we got back to my brother's house she said she had fun at the doctor's and said "this was the best day ever". If you know her, she says that a lot. ha ha

Saturday I picked up the "New Moon" movie at Walmart and had a movie watching party that night at my house. We even had themed snacks.

Carlisle's carmel to go with the apples. Wolf biscuits (mozerella sticks). Dracucakes (mini quiches). Sun chips because vampires don't go out in the sun.

Flesh and blood (chips and salsa). Stakes thru the heart (taquitos). Vampire teeth (Bugles). We also had chocolate chip muffins, sub sandwiches, and brownies. Needless to say we had lots of fun eating and watching the movie. We had tons of food and not enough mouths to eat it, lol.



Last on our crazy week was on Friday Jack saw the allergist and they did a skin test for different foods. As you can see he reacted to most of them.

With this test he was positive for allergies to milk, peanuts, cashews, egg whites (pretty much the whole egg), wheat, and soybean. The ones that came up negative were walnuts and saline. However, they told me to keep all nuts away from him and they sent me home with a EpiPen trainer. I picked up the real thing from the pharmacy. I get to carry it around now in case Jack has a bad allergic reaction and give him a shot. I also had to take him to St. Luke's to get his blood drawn for testing that way. They will get a more accurate knowledge of how allergic he is to these things. Luckily, the wheat and soy were very small reactions on the skin test so he said not to worry about those if he's already tolerating them in his diet. The main ones to worry about were the nuts, milk and eggs. However, we can challenge the egg allergy by bringing in some baked goods with egg in it to his next appointment and having him eat them while there to see if anything happens. So depending on how that goes he may or may not be able to have things with egg in it.


So it's just been one thing after another here in our family. One thing's for sure, the healthcare system is getting their money's worth out of us this past year. Thank goodness we have the insurance through Curtis's work and our own personal health coverage. I just hope nothing else comes up. Each new thing that comes up is pushing us farther away from reaching our financial goals. But all we can do is our best.

Our Allergy Baby

So today I had my sister watch the boys for me while I went to an appointment. Jack tried to take a nap in the playpen the whole time I was gone. By the time I got back this is what he looked like. We are pretty sure it was a reaction to the lysol wipe that was used on the crib just before putting him in it. I was in a hurry and my sister was going to wash it down with a rag after doing the wipe but I didn't want to be late so I just laid him straight down and didn't even wait for the lysol to dry. Obviously, I won't be doing that again, EVER!

This is what he looked like before having any Benadryl.

Swollen eyes and ear.

And a rash on his cheeks and face.

This is what he looked like 6 hours after having Benadryl and right before going to bed. Thankfully he is starting to look better. I also gave him a bath tonight which I think helped.

It doesn't seem to be bothering him. He's still having a good time with his sister. I also called my brother Stillman, who came over with my brother in law Chris to give him a blessing. I am thankful to have Priesthood holders in the family who could help. I did try to call my home teachers but neither of them answered their phones. Thank goodness for family :)

Not only did this happen to him but I also had a dental appointment today with my brother in law and found out that I have some sort of infection in my gums and need to get all 4 of my wisdom teeth taken out. They are still buried underneath too. I wasn't even sure if I had wisdom teeth until today because they took an x-ray. Not sure how soon we'll do that though since I'm scheduled for jury duty next month. It might not be until May that I get it done.

On a lighter note, I took Nikki to the store yesterday and bought her some new shoes. This time they had shoelaces instead of velcro because I decided it was time for her to learn how to tie shoes. And boy it didn't take any time at all. I showed her a little bit while we were in the store and she insisted on trying it right there. I finally had to tell her we'll practice at home. She had it down within minutes after I showed her how to do it. And I don't do it the traditional way. I tie them with two bunny ears instead of one, but that's how my 1st grade teacher taught me. I'm amazed at how fast she is learning new things.

New Friends

This week has been a really good week for me and the main reason is that I finally went over and met our new neighbors across the street and took them cookies on Monday. They had moved there in December while we were in SLC and I just have not gotten over there to welcome them and introduce ourselves until now(mostly due to cold weather and illnesses). I'm so glad I did though. It was an instant friendship for all of us. I had first met the grandma earlier last week and she was really nice. And then I met her daughter who looks to be about my age I think. She is also very nice and very easy to talk to. They have two kids that are close to the same ages as my two oldest kids. Nikki has quickly become very good friends with the little girl, who just turned 5. And they have a little boy that will be 3 in May. The boys don't really play that much together yet because he keeps running back from our house to his house, not really sure where he wants to go. But I'm sure him and Garrett will be friends in no time. All I can say is it is so nice to have friends for my kids to play with that I don't have to travel anywhere for them to be able to do that. Now they can just run across the street or their friends can come over here. I love it! I also love that I have been able to make a new friend as well. Here are a couple of pictures of the girls and some miscellaneous ones.


Making their own crowns.

And now showing them off.

Jack loves bread!

Garrett enjoying his peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Nikki is helping Jack learn how to walk. What a good big sister.

Visits from family

Last night my parents and grandparents came over to visit. My dad has been in Iraq working for the last 4 1/2 months and is home for a short vacation.

Nikki and her grandpa (my dad)

Jack having fun with great grandpa.

These kids were so playful and hyper it was hard to get them still for a picture but we all had a good time.

Last night I also had my cousin and her friend spend the night and the kids LOVED playing with them. My cousin came from Utah to get a picture of a painting that our grandpa painted for me many years ago. She's on a road trip to hunt down all of grandpa's paintings to get pictures of them and clean them and anything else that needed done and we were the first stop. The kids were so excited that they ended up sleeping in their sleeping bags out in the family room with the girls. They felt like it was a sleepover. Then this morning Nikki wanted to show them how she can ride her bike. This is her fourth time trying to ride without training wheels and this time she took off as if she's been doing it for a long time. She just started riding all around the culdesac and she did great! Sorry Curtis, she learned to ride before you got home. But I guess I told you she probably would :) Now she'll be ready for family bike rides, maybe even riding home from school if I take her bike to her on the bike trailer.

A good day to be outside!

The weather felt a lot like spring weather today so I couldn't miss this opportunity to get outside for awhile. So I did a bit of yard work.

Here is the side I worked on. I started out trimming the rose bush. Then I just kept going by cleaning out the rocks, leaves, and dead branches from around the bush.....and kept going. Before you knew it I was throwing old dirty rocks in the garbage and taking out the old ground cover and throwing it away as well. Then I raked up the dirt to even it out and make it look better. I think the pictures are a little dark because my battery was about to die. If you click on the picture to make it bigger you'll notice we have tulips sprouting up already thanks to my friend who planted them for me last year.

Here is the other side that I didn't get to today. That will have to wait for another day.

Garrett even came out after he woke up from his nap and wanted to help. He wore those yellow gloves and helped me rake the dirt and pick up rocks and leaves. After we finished he discovered the little trampoline and started jumping.

Then realized the big one was better. It's nice for him when he's the only one jumping. No one to bounce him down.

This was taken a few days ago. Jack and Garrett love to play under the kitchen table. Just had to share this because it was too cute.

Who says vampires don't exist?

I have two vampires living in my house!

And their teeth are yellowish green!

We've had a couple of nice days lately so last week the kids went out on their bikes. Nikki decided she didn't want training wheels anymore. However, she didn't realize how hard it would be to keep from falling over. But she kept telling herself "I can do this, I can do this". I ended up holding the back of the seat most of the time. The rest of the time she would stand there and keep trying to put both of her feet up on the pedals and end up quickly catching herself. We'll work on this some more when it gets warmer.